Too Cool for Chores
by Teobi
Summary: Being the coolest Tracy is hard. For one thing, they expect you to help around the house! Tag-on for S03 E18, Avalanche. Mild spoilers.


Brandon 'The Bear' Beringer and his trusty sidekick Goose were out of danger. Thunderbird 2 dropped them off at the base of the mountain to continue their extreme vlogging and then Virgil, Alan and Scott flew home.

Grandma was waiting for them in the lounge when they arrived. "Good job, boys," she said as they appeared from their respective entry points in their normal every day clothing. You would be hard pressed to imagine them as anything other than young men coming home from a day trip if it wasn't for the portraits lining the wall.

They'd survived being crushed by a roaring wall of snow and they were barely out of breath. Except for Alan. There was a new spring in his step, a fresh gleam in his eye.

"The Bear thinks I'm cool!" he declared proudly. "Me! Alan Tracy!"

Virgil rolled his eyes at Grandma. "I had to listen to this all the way home. It's your turn."

"Really?" said Grandma, smiling at her youngest grandson.

Alan beamed wider. "Yeah. Turns out he didn't want to include me in his vlog because then everyone would want to watch me and not him."

Grandma watched him swagger to the sofa and throw himself down on it in the most louche way possible. She decided that if there was ever a contest to see which of her boys was the smuggest, Alan as he looked right now would romp home by a mile.

Alan picked up his tablet and started playing a game. The air was filled with the sound of shrieks, explosions, and blaring trumpets."I am _so_ cool," he said to nobody in particular, thumbs working overtime to slaughter tiny armies. "So cool. So extreme. I am _Alan Tracy_."

Grandma listened patiently to the sounds of annihilation coming from Alan's game. "I thought _Alan Tracy_ was in the middle of chores," she said, eyebrows raised.

"Pfft. Whatever."

Grandma looked at Scott, whose palms were already half way to his face.

"What was that, young man?" Her tone brooked no argument but Alan didn't even look up. He obliterated another enemy troop and hissed with triumph. Grandma strode across the room and plucked the tablet out of his hand, brushing his protests aside.

"Hey! I wasn't finished!"

"You're right you weren't finished. You weren't finished your chores."

Alan pushed himself into a sitting position and pouted. "I'm too cool for chores. M.A.X is way more efficient."

"He's got his own chores, Alan. For every job you shirk, someone else has to pick up the slack. Now go finish what you were doing before you went out on the mission."

"That's just it," said Scott. "He wasn't doing anything."

Alan spluttered with indignation. "I was watching the Bear! That's how I knew he was in danger! If I was doing _chores_ he'd still be buried under twenty metres of snow!"

Virgil came back from the kitchen with two bottles of lemonade and gave one to Scott, ignoring Alan.

"Hey, where's mine?"

"Go get your own," Virgil said languidly. "That is if you're not too cool to walk."

Scott cracked the seal on his bottle with a satisfying twist. "Maybe he can get M.A.X to bring him one."

Staring forlornly at the tablet in Grandma's hand, Alan slumped even further into the sofa cushions. "You guys suck. I wish I was back on the mountain with Bear and Goose. Being extreme and living the dream."

Virgil smiled before tipping his bottle and swallowing more lemonade. "You'd only get in the way."

"I would not! I'm the one who rescued them! Scott couldn't even fit down the crevice because he's so fat."

Scott nearly choked on his drink and Virgil bellowed with laughter. "If Scott's fat then I'm a blue whale."

"I drove the Sherpa pod. You guys just stood there and watched. I'm the coolest Tracy. Brandon said so."

"You sure are becoming the most obnoxious," said Virgil, tapping Scott on the shoulder before the eldest Tracy exploded. "C'mon, Scott. We've got work to do. Some of the new pod schematics need reconfiguring, we could probably do with fine tuning a few of the..." his voice trailed away as he and Scott left the lounge and made their way to Brains' lab.

"And are you going to sit there all day?" Grandma said to Alan, still pouting on the sofa but now with tightly folded arms.

"You sure know how to burst a guy's bubble," he said crossly. "I felt great. Now I feel like crap all over again."

Grandma smiled and sat down next to him. "Pouting isn't cool. Avoiding your responsibilities isn't cool. Do you really think your friend the Bear spends all of his time blogging?"

"Vlogging. And yes, as a matter pf fact he does. He's _famous_." Alan stared at the tips of his shoes. "He did say I was cool, Grandma. I felt validated. Like I mattered."

Grandma put an arm around his shoulders. "Alan, you've always mattered. You're as important to this family as anyone else."

"I _guess_."

Grandma ruffled his hair. "Would you do chores if they were cool?"

He shrugged. "I might."

"Should I get you a snowboard?"

"I've already got Astroboards."

"And how cool are they?"

A smile tweaked Alan's lips despite his determination to keep pouting. "They're pretty darn cool."

"You betcha they are. You know Alan, you're impulsive, like your father. And there's no cooler Tracy than Jeff Tracy. Keep that between us."

Alan brightened at the mention of his father's name. "You really think so, Grandma?"

She winked. "I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true."

"Gee thanks! You really think I'm as cool as Dad? That's awesome!" He fidgeted until Grandma removed her arm from his shoulders. "I should go apologise to the dorks," he said. "They might need my help seeing as I'm so much younger and cooler and quicker at thinking."

Grandma watched him jump to his feet with renewed enthusiasm. "Might be best not to show off too much," she suggested. "You don't want to make them jealous."

"_More_ jealous you mean," said Alan with a cheeky grin.

A worried tone crept into Grandma's voice. "Alan..."

"Don't worry," he replied airily. "I'm cool as a cucumber. Everything will be fine. I'll even apologise to M.A.X."

Grandma turned in her seat to watch him go, head held high on his too thin neck, swinging gangly teenager's arms in time to some imaginary beat. "One day you'll grow into yourself, Alan Tracy," she said with a grandmother's knowledge of these things. "And I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to that day or dreading it." She smiled wistfully and tapped her Wrist Comm. Scott's holo dutifully appeared.

"What's up, Grandma?"

"Heads up, boys. Mr. Cool is on his way down." She ended the call before Scott could respond and put her feet up on the couch. "Now, let's see," she said, activating the tablet she'd taken from Alan, "Where was I? Oh yes, Final Boss, Kingdom Hearts II. Let's see who's extreme, shall we?" And with a throaty chuckle and the whole room to herself, she settled down to play.


End file.
